Even more peculiar was the use of the phrase by the Russian Tsar, Lenin the Terrible. Joesai had been intrigued by certain passages in The Forge of War suggested to him by Teenae. Lenin, dismayed by past losses of Tsarist property to the expanding Capitalist clan and outraged by Socialist calls for land reform in which former state slaves would be awarded the farmland they had tilled for generations, had, immediately after his coronation, begun the extermination of the Capitalists by mass terror while, simultaneously, conniving from within the Socialist clan to restore all property to the Tsar by systematic liquidation of every Socialist within his realm. In retaking the land for the state he justified the mass murder of peasants as the Will of the People because it was the peasants who had given the Tsardom to Lenin and therefore was it not their Will when he ordered them destroyed rather than relinquishing to them the land which historically was his?
Joesai said it another way. “Let bargaining forge from the will of the clans the Will of the People. Then when I return to Soebo shall we not have a new city?”
The Liethe woman followed him out of the old Soebo. She was a brown shadow, indistinguishable from any other traveller. For a while they walked boldly by road in a direction too westerly to be connected with the Gathering. He was impressed by Comfort’s strength. She was too small, tiny even, but if he slowed out of sympathy she was soon ahead of him, cautioning him about branches, picking their path.
She wilted first, though. Fondly, he took her packsack, and then she was holding onto him. She never complained. He was not sure if she was really tired, or whether she simply wanted an evening alone with him. He would have continued all night but, pleased with an excuse, he found a campsite.
“We’ll have Scowlmoon to ourselves,” she said, building a small fire. She had brought water from a brook and was making broth.
He let her — why fight her need to serve a man? — but to busy himself, unrolled their mats. Her essential things amused him. A comb; a blue glass bottle, probably perfume; eye shadow; the leaves of the olinar, a powerful contraceptive. “Your clan knows the Mnankrei like few others. They are hardly real to me except for a priest who once hung my smallest wife from a yardarm. I was angry for a while.”
“Did she survive?”
“Yes, but he will not! She never forgives. To this day she reproaches me for acts I cannot remember committing.”
“Do you miss her?”
“Yes. She’s small like you.”
“Tonight you shall have me at halfmoon. You’ll forget her for a moment. What will I get in exchange?”
“Ho! I see I spoke too much about bargaining!” He tried to read her smile in the darkness. “I’ll carry your packsack,” he said to make her offer seem casual.
“I want your nose for an amulet,” she said to tell him that she was priceless.
Idle fingers picked up a rust red stone, flecked by copper green. “How about a jewel instead?”
She brought him his bowl of broth and kissed his nose. “How about Soebo’s Palace of Morning? The cupola at dawn is enough to break a girl’s heart.”
“And a man’s purse!”
“If you promise me the Palace of Morning I’ll massage your back.”
“Give me a sample to see if you’re worth it.”
“Hug me first. You have to be tender, or we won’t let you into the city with your ridiculous Court.”
The desire was on him. He tugged at her sashes, and found buttons, and lifted her body so that he could get her clothes off. Then he laid her on the mat, head in his lap, and whimsically put his stone in her God’s Eye, which was what Getans called their navel. For a moment he was content to look at her. “I’ve slowed down,” he said. “Nothing seems to be such a hurry anymore.”
“It’s better that way.”
“Are you tired?” he asked.
“I sleep better when I’ve ridden a man who loves me. You’ve been kind to me. I’ll dance for you all when we reach camp.”
He shook his head and lifted her body so that they were coupled in an upright position. “No dancing. When we reach camp, we break camp and blister feet toward Soebo.”
“There’s always time for celebration,” she replied petulantly. “The world seems less cruel when we have been laughing and dancing.”
He held back his thrusts — remembering Noe’s patient lessons on how to arouse a woman. He wanted to be better than any Mnankrei lover she had ever known. He listened to her breathing.
“Is marriage like this?” she asked. “Holding a stone in your Eye out in the wilderness while you hold a man you never want to leave?”
“You must be crazy! Marriage is more like your wife stealing coin from you to pay a forgotten debt while she’s humping your co-husband.”
He felt her breath on his cheek, a sacred human perfume unlike any other smell of the red sun’s world. Slowly her rhythm built, slowly her fist tightened around the Liethe amulet he wore.
There was a celebration when they reached camp with the news of the move on Soebo. The young Kaiel were restless. They were not used to idleness but to the Trials, to winning, to cunning escapes from death and so the celebration came spontaneously. His strange Liethe taught the Kaiel girls a simple dance that their quick bodies perfected while the boys provided vocal music and enthusiastic clapping.
These youths were too fresh from the creches for Joesai to think of them yet as men and women. He watched the gaiety with affection. Even if they were inept at sea, they were lethal on land. He was proud of them. They called themselves judges. In another age, among the stars, they would have called themselves warriors. Joesai found himself clapping along with the throbbing voices of the choir.
Comfort insisted on providing the recipe for the celebration feast. The camp was being taken down around them but eating was a constant of life. She rushed between the wagons, serving the Kaiel, seeing that everyone was well fed, making sure that there were no leftovers. Joesai she found busy in the old farmhouse organizing the march and she had to sit beside him and feed him or he would not have bothered.
Much later, when the camp was already asleep, the watches stationed, Comfort returned to the farmhouse, waiting to sweeten his mat. When he felt his way down the ladder, tired, ready for oblivion, she massaged him, relaxing the cramps that came from stooping over a torch to do his papers, working his muscles with experienced hands, limbering them.
“What’s it like to be married?” she asked, returning to her favorite subject.
“Hectic.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything. Life is hectic.”
“Try a few husbands someday and find out.”
“No,” she said. “I’ve taken my vows. Who’s your favorite wife?”
“The one who is on my pillows.”
“Will I do as a substitute?”
“I’m not complaining. You take better care of me than Teenae or Noe ever did.”
“Thank you.”
“You have a magic about you.”
“Why do you stay married? Why don’t you just wander from woman to woman? That would make life more interesting.”
“Why should beginnings be more interesting than middles or ends? I know my wives and husbands. We’re the kind of team it takes a lifetime to build. Without them there would be no other women; I would be dead. Beginnings tell you very little. I didn’t even like Noe when I first met her. I thought she was altogether too flighty for us. I wanted a serious girl from the creches, not one of those soft Kaiel who come from a family. So beginnings aren’t always where the fun is. I didn’t really get to like Noe until we started to go sailplane gliding together.”